A Must-Read for Bligh and Others About McDonald's Mini-Med Crap Health Insurance Policy

[longfisher]

http://www.slate.com/id/2276457/

This is an update on congressional hearings on "mini-med" policies, especially the one McDonald's has for their employees and how incredibly deficient it is.

I'm incredulous that Obama granted a one-year waiver for this policy on the grounds that it's better than nothing.

When an employee pays $710 a year for a health policy that has a maximum benefit ceiling of only $2,000 it's an incredible rip-off. McDonalds should be ashamed of this.

And, their managers and administrators pay less for their full-featured PPO plans than the average hourly employee pays for their crap policy. Here's an excerpt:

...the sliding premiums for the three insurance options available to corporate suits and some restaurant managers but not to hourly employees actually begin at levels below those paid by hourly workers for mini-med plans even though the suits' policies contain no annual benefit limits. That's right. Some nonhourly employees at McDonald's pay less for their real health insurance—with no annual limits and, indeed, an employee out-of-pocket maximum of $4,000 for covered expenses—than the schmucks shoveling French fries and flipping Big Macs pay for fake health insurance with annual benefit limits of $2,000, $5,000, and $10,000, and no employee out-of-pocket maximum for covered expenses. Oh, and the absolute highest health premium the suits might pay ($1,435 for higher-earning employees in the "no deductible PPO") is less than a quarter the premium McDonald's expects the schmucks to pay for the only policy hourly workers can opt for that isn't a mini-med."

I'll never eat at a McDonald's again.

LF